The Airing of Grievances
by Accidentally The Whole Fanfic
Summary: Misery loves company. In fact, misery loves company so much that when happiness makes itself known in Mineral Town, misery pitches a fit. Watch as the townsfolk let it all out.


The Airing of Grievances

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It had become an occurrence of such frequency that it could almost be deemed an official festival, were it merely annual:

Mineral Town's monthly get-togethers at Doug's inn, where the whole town would assemble and swap stories.

Of course, this had been the original premise, back when the town was new and the residents barely knew each other. Whenever people moved into town, it was a perfect "get to know each other" opportunity, humorous anecdotes and touching commiserations tightening the community's bonds.

Over time, however, the premise had degenerated into what was essentially now a competition - and one that was not in the least on friendly terms...

Mayor Thomas stood behind the podium, his short stature barely allowing his head to peep over the top. He frowned and tapped the microphone, counting on the screech of feedback to silence the buzz of murmurs and idle chit-chat.

"Come now, come now," he snapped. "It's bad enough I lost my wife in a logging accident and I'm only 4'11", even though I'm fifty-three years old. Do you really need to make matters worse for me by stalling the proceedings?"

"Bite me!"

"Ann, I will do no such thing." Thomas cleared his throat, and nodded. "Now, then! I think we all know why we're here. I've made my case clear. Shall we begin? I think the first up will be Ann, since she's clearly so eager to speak up."

Ann Oakerly scowled and thrust her middle finger in the air at him, before sulking to the podium and taking the mic.

"What's there to say?" she barked. "My dad thinks I'll die a spinster because I'm not a frilly, dainty little thing. Ever since my mom died when she fell off the peak of Mother's Hill, he's been nagging me and nagging me. 'Oh, Ann, you have ovaries, not testicles!' 'Oh, Ann, wear a dress!' 'Oh, Ann, don't scratch your crotch and spit like that! You're such a tomboy!' 'Oh, Ann, if I'd wanted a son, I would've gotten you sex reassignment surgery!'"

Tears were streaming down her face now. "I'm your _daughter_, you sexist fuck! Why can't you love me for who I am?! I hate you, Daddy!" She jumped down from the podium and ran off, sobbing, to her room.

"Bo-ring!" her father, Doug, muttered. With a groan, he took the podium next, rolling his eyes. "Christ, that's about the most feminine thing she's done in twenty-one years."

"Sexist pig!" one of the women of the village yelled.

"Oh, shut the hell up, Anna. All you do is cook and gossip anyway," Doug shot back. Anna Welvin fell silent, glaring daggers at him. He nodded to the rest of the crowd. "So, my honorary son already gave you most of the story, because she or he _can't_ let _me_ ever tell the whole thing: My wife died in a terrible accident, leaving me with a crippling loneliness and a burning hole in my heart."

"You know, I could check on that for you..."

"It's a _metaphor_, you goon. Also, Ann there will probably leave me without any grandchildren whatsoever, because it's not like I raised her - or maybe him - on my own for fifteen years or anything." Doug sighed. "And I believe there may be a man in one of the nearby villages pretending to be me. He is not. I have no niece named Gwen, nor is my father's name 'Woody'. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about it."

"You too?" Duke Lipschitz gasped. His wife, Manna, smacked him on the arm.

"Stop stealing Doug's spotlight! My god, you're always like that, you just have to _whore_ the attention as if you can't bear to not be in the middle of things for just a _second_-"

Duke gave a strangled yell of annoyance and rushed the podium, bumping Doug off and pointing a quivering finger at Manna. "_That_ is what I have to put up with!" he said angrily. "She never shuts up! My god! When she dies, we're gonna have to bury her thirty feet underground because she'll _still_ be yakking, and we won't be able to hear the end of it otherwise!" He ground his teeth together. "Between that and my daughter running away, is it any wonder I drink?!"

Manna stormed up to him and shoved him away. "That's my _husband_, folks! My fat, lazy, temperamental, no-good, cheap, tab-running, family-destroying _husband_, who's ruining his liver more and more every day as he drinks away the family business! We lose more than we make, but, oh, Duke doesn't care, now does he?! Oh, ever since he drove our daughter away by telling her to wash her filthy v-"

"_Manna!_" Duke growled warningly.

"See?! There he goes again! I tell you, as much as I would hate to be left all alone in this world after he drove our dear Aja off, maybe if he _died_ from alcohol poisoning, I'd finally have some _peace_ for a change!"

"Could you make sure he pays off his tab first?" Sasha Clark called from the back row. Manna nodded, and Sasha shot her a thumbs-up and a grin before taking the podium for herself.

"Sasha, I thought we agreed that I was going to go first," her husband whined.

"Shut up, Jeff. Maybe if you had a fucking spine, you'd be up here right now," Sasha snarled. "See what I have to put up with, people? My dear husband, the wimp. My Tampons have more courage than he does! And it's not like _you_ assholes help, being too cheap to bring your own damn money. So, no, you run up tabs that Jeff there is too wimpy to turn down, because he doesn't want to get on anybody's bad side. We're in the red, you spineless turd!"

"Sorry, dear." Jeff made his way up to the podium next, shuffling slowly and clutching his stomach. "Oh, dear. Oh, dear..."

"C'mon, Dad. You can do it," his daughter called.

"Thanks, Karen..." Jeff coughed weakly and sighed. "I have ulcers because of you all. I hate you. My wife beats me with a rake." All eyes turned to Sasha as Jeff slumped back to his seat, and she chuckled nervously.

"Jeff is so melodramatic," she said weakly.

"Shut up, Sasha, you've already had your turn."

"Don't talk to my mom like that!" Karen snapped, punching Duke in the back of the head as she made her way up front. "Asshole."

"Lush."

"Takes one to know one, fatass."

Duke's eyes filled with tears. "O... only Manna can call me that..."

"Not anymore." Karen grimaced as she took the podium, balling her hands into fists. "That guy is a _regular_ at the store. You see what I have to put up with? Cheap piece of shit. I always have to play debt collector to half of you! Yeah, you know who you are," she hissed, seeing the guilty faces among the crowd. "Why don't you ship crap like Claire does so you can make some cash?!"

Claire Lourdes waved cheerfully, then cowered as fiery glares flew at her from all directions.

"On top of that, my parents fight like cats, and then I have to hear their damn make-up sex because their room is right next to mine."

"I told you, we were moving furniture!" Sasha sputtered.

Karen rolled her eyes. "I'm not _retarded_, Mom. I know what sex is. Speaking of which!" She pointed at a boy with long, red hair and glasses. "My own _boyfriend_ can't even trust me around one of my best friends! He makes my life Hell with all his stupid interrogations! 'Did you look at Kai's ass?! What's wrong with my ass?! Why are you having _pizza_ for lunch? Did you get the _pizza_ from _Kai_?! Are you having _sex_ with _Kai_?!' Hey, Rick, guess why I drink so much, huh?"

Rick McGoll didn't want to hear another word of this. as Karen flounced off back to her seat, he took his turn, waggling a disapproving finger as he ranted:

"Well, can you blame me? That Kai is a playboy! A good-for-nothing _pimp_-"

Kai MacMerek made a noise of protest, but Rick ignored him.

"-who just wants to seduce the women of this town! He has it out for me! Going for my girlfriend, trying to steal my sister away so he can use her and toss her aside like a corn husk-"

At those words, his sister, Popuri, joined him, pushing him aside.

"Shut up, Rick! My brother's such a bonehead!" she wailed into the microphone. "My boyfriend's only around during summer, but every time we try to enjoy our time together, this buttface has to go and ruin it!"

"Well, maybe you should help out around the damn _farm_ some, instead of spending all your time with Kai!" Rick spat.

"Dad didn't teach me how to do a thing, you know that!"

"You sure as hell could learn! Mom's too frail to help out! And Dad hasn't been around for ten years!"

"Enough!" their mother, Lillia, declared from her seat in the front. Rick and Popuri fell silent, looking apologetic, as Trent Peng rose from his seat to help her up to the podium. "Thank you, Doctor."

"Of course."

Lillia closed her eyes and shook her head, frowning. "As you all can see, this is what I have to put up with every day at home. My husband's been gone for ten years, trying to find a flower to cure my condition - and I fear it's only made things worse. By the way, thank you _very_ much for passing along the information to him, Anna."

Anna's face turned red with shame.

"As you all may know," Lillia continued, "I suffer from a rare degenerative condition that can't be even diagnosed, and a cure is next to impossible to come by. I hardly have any energy throughout the day. And my own children are more concerned with meddling than with helping me out when I need it most."

As the crowd murmured its sympathies, Kai's voice cut through: "Uh, we're not even finished here yet, people!"

Lillia scowled as Kai took over the podium and began his tale of woe:

"So, my parents think I'm useless, worthless, and regret having me. They don't think I can or want me to succeed in life. I come here a few months out of the year to get away from them, but does that help? Nope! I can't spend time with my girlfriend or talk to some of my best friends without being cornered by that paranoid douche bag who thinks he's some kinda freaking warden or something!"

Many of the women in the room were now giving Rick cold stares.

"What?!" he protested, throwing his hands up.

"And you people don't ever come to my snack bar when it's open!" Kai added, looking wounded. Gray Smithson waved at him from his seat, and Kai winked and pointed at him. "'Cept you, man! We're cool."

As Kai returned to his seat, Gray took his place, fiddling with his hat. "My grandfather doesn't think I'll ever be good enough," he mumbled gruffly. "I try my best, and he always criticizes me to the bone. No praise. Then he destroys whatever I've worked on and tells me I'm useless. And yet it's better than how my _parents_ treated me!" He stomped off back to his seat while his grandfather, Saibara, snorted and took his turn.

"Bitch, bitch, bitch. That's all that lump of crap ever does," he growled. "Maybe if you'd spend more time working and less time whining, you'd be worth something as a blacksmith! I'm getting old, Gray! I can't handle it all by myself! Hmph. By the way, Duke and Doug, if you ever get your little doppelganger problem in Flower Bud sorted out, could you tell that bastard running the atelier to stop forging my name on his checks? He doesn't listen to me. Pretends he's deaf. Lousy prick."

Anna was next, bustling up with a refined and dignified air. "Good evening, Mineral Town. I trust you're all feeling quite terrible right now."

"Yep."

"Mmmhmm."

"You got it."

"As do I," she returned graciously. "My daughter... my daughter's wasting her life away in those silly books of hers! I try and try to teach her to be a lady - I tell her, 'Ladies don't read, ladies are confident, ladies fall for gentlemen' - but it's useless. She simply refuses to agree. And my husband!" She snorted, crossing her arms and glaring at her husband, Basil. "He's always working. Always focused on those silly plants - oh, that botany! Isn't it ridiculous? We used to have mind-blowing sex, oh yes! Now I just lay there and fake it."

Basil turned red and hid his face in his hands, sighing. "Thank you, Anna."

"Of course, dear."

Basil followed Anna's turn, still looking embarrassed. "As you can see, my wife is a shameless nymphomaniac with a stick up her butt, and I don't think she understands the concept of sarcasm or the demands of my job. And she's stressing our dear daughter out." He smiled at his daughter, Mary, who began quietly making her way up as well. "And my wife has stressed _me _out to the point where I actually described her as a nymphomaniac with a stick up her butt. Mary?"

"Thank you," Mary said, bowing to her father as she took the stand. "Ummm... well, my mother doesn't take me terribly seriously. I don't like that she tries to change my image again and again. And the library gets rather lonely... and I do think I may be witnessing the dissolution of my parents' marriage before my eyes."

"Also, you're boring," Duke called out.

"Yes, Mr. Lipschitz, that too. Umm... that's it..."

As Mary returned to her seat, a rather unfamiliar man made his way up: Tall, skinny, with a long face and a spiky black pompadour-styled hairdo. It was hard to tell if he was angry, or simply squinting a lot. He swept an arm dramatically as he declared, "You people don't even know who I am!"

"You know... you're right," Mayor Thomas said curiously. "Who are you again?"

"Thomas! I live at your _house_!" the man whined. "It's me! Kano!"

"Ohhhhh, right... right... well, thank you for your contribution, Kenny."

"Kano!"

"Geno?"

"AUGH!" Kano stormed back to his seat and threw himself down, crossing his arms and glowering.

"He needs to calm down," Mayor Thomas sighed. "Whoever he is."

A little old man was up next, scratching his tuft of white hair curiously.

"My, my, my... so much anger. You know, I get pretty lonely out there fishing by myself."

The townsfolk looked confused. He sighed.

"I'm Greg. The fisherman."

Blank stares all around.

"The black man. You know, the only one in the whole village."

"Ohhhhhhhhhh!"

"Right, yeah! Black dude!"

"What's a black person?"

Greg sighed and shuffled off back to his seat, shaking his head. Next came an odd-looking man in khaki shorts and a safari jacket and hat, wearing glasses so thick that his eyes looked almost obscured.

"I work with _bees_! It's quite a painful profession... and nobody ever visits me, either..."

"Shut up, Louis," Gotz Hark snapped. "Nobody visits you because nobody likes you. And for that matter," he added, taking his turn now, "I have to share a cabin with this bonehead because my wife and daughter _died_ in a _blizzard_. And now people are all scared of the big, burly woodsman because they think he'll snap at any second. AND MAYBE THEY'RE RIGHT!" he bellowed, causing the rest of the townsfolk to flinch. "...But, no, you guys have the wrong idea. Jesus, be a little open-minded for once!"

"Indeed," Pastor Carter said calmly, now holding everyone's attention. "I am here to help all of you. I care for all of you. But some of your confessions are so... trivial. So you didn't change your underwear for two days. So you passed gas during a funeral. So you're coveting your neighbor's wife. So you ate a cookie when you were dieting. It _doesn't matter_. The Goddess cares little for these minor transgressions. And for that matter, so do I. If you're going to waste my time fretting over the littlest things, I should like to suggest that perhaps you need to seek professional help."

"And the next one of you _douchebags_ that tosses a weed into my spring is going to die!" a woman's voice exclaimed from... everywhere? Nowhere? They couldn't be quite sure, but they were most certainly shaken.

Barley Yodel was next, and he decided against the painful, slow shuffle up front. "My daughter abandoned my granddaughter and left her to me to raise. And I love the girl dearly-" he smiled at little May "-but I'm so old... my arthritis is horrible. I fear I may not live long enough to finish raising her right."

"At least you can walk," Ellen Farbess muttered bitterly. But then she smiled in a serene way and cocked her head. "Oh, dear... did I say that aloud?"

"Yep." Barley scratched his chin as he looked over at Ellen, sitting in her ever-present rocking chair. "...How did you get here, anyway? You don't even have a wheelchair!"

Ellen smiled enigmatically. "Regardless, this old woman has a few sad tales of her own... my son and daughter-in-law were killed in a plane crash. I've had to raise my grandchildren on my own for sixteen years now... and not only am I lame, but I'm incontinent."

The other residents cringed.

"It's embarrassing when you can't even wipe your own-"

"Okay, Grandma!" Elli interrupted nervously. "Ah, Grandma... she says such embarrassing things. In fact, sometimes she takes advantage of her old age to fake senility... but _I'm_ the bad guy if I point it out to her. My brother is obsessed with showing me little, gross bugs that he knows very well I _hate_-" she looked crossly at her brother, Stu "-and I work with one of the world's most oblivious men... also, I've given half of you prostate exams. It is my job, yes. I'm aware of this. But my _god_... the hygiene some of you have is reprehensible."

"And I've given still more of you gynecological exams," Doctor Trent piped up. "I try to be professional, but I have to admit, the sights have devastated my sexuality beyond repair. I can no longer feel attracted to anyone. I hate my job."

"You have a tab at our store, asshole," Karen called.

"And you're going to have to find a new health care provider if you don't give it a rest," Trent shot back.

May and Stu both ran up to the podium next, each shoving and pushing the other aside in an attempt to get there first.

"Stop it!" Stu yelled. "I don't want to go after you get your _cooties_ on it!"

"You're the one with cooties!" May retorted. "My mommy doesn't love me!"

"My mommy's dead!"

"So is my daddy!"

"So's _my _daddy!"

"And my only friend here is stupid!"

"My only friend here keeps trying to marry me! It's gross! And my sister's cooking sucks!"

"Your haircut sucks!"

"_You_ suck!"

Fuming, the two children returned to their seats. May kicked Stu in the shins. Stu retaliated by pulling on May's braids.

Cliff Hall came next, and he shyly approached the podium, not making eye contact with anyone.

"Ummm... my mom is dead... I think it might have been my fault. I can't even find my sister. She might be dead, too. And I'm freeloading at the inn because I can't find a job here... but I don't want to leave. You guys are so cheap..."

"I _know_!" Karen chimed in. "_Thank_ you!"

"Shove it, Karen," Duke muttered.

A large, muscular man came next. He waved at them cheerfully, and took out a few index cards. "Ah, yes. Zack here. You know, the man who picks up your daily shipping - the man who helps keep the cash circulating through this place. Saying 'Thank you' would be nice." He sighed. "So would not living with an anal-retentive con-man... and so would not being in love with someone who's married."

"Amen," Carter murmured. He flushed when the stares suddenly came his way, and pointed at Saibara. "He said it."

"Carter!"

"We are not judging you, my friend," Carter said soothingly. Saibara smacked him upside the head.

Following Zack was a short, sly-looking Asian man wearing a blindingly yellow overcoat. He threw his sleek black braid over his shoulder and pointed an accusing finger at the crowd before him. "Stingy! Stingy, stingy, stingy! You idiots don't know a good deal when you see it!" He shook his head rapidly, pounding his fists on the podium. "You are the most moronic shoppers I've had yet to con out of their money!"

"Won, your merchandise sucks!"

"My merchandise is pure and flawless!" Won shrieked, stamping his feet. "I will not tolerate these accusations!"

Mayor Thomas's son, Harris, sighed. "This guy _admits_ to being a con-man," he told the crowd, "and yet I can't arrest him because I have insufficient proof. This town is _boring_! I'm the law enforcement here, and I don't even have anything to do! Oh, sure, I could have _something_ to do, but _somebody_ drove that something off." He glared at Duke and Manna.

"Are you calling our daughter a _thing_?" Manna huffed.

"Well, dear, she always was kind of funny-looking, and-"

"You're not helping!"

"Also," Harris cut in, "look at me! I could launch battleships off of my nose! I hate my genes!"

"Your genes clearly hate you, too," Trent muttered.

Last but not least was Claire, the young, new farmer from the far end of town.

"Hi, guys!" she chirped, waving. "Gee, it was interesting getting to come to this event for the first time, hear all those stories..."

Murder was in the eyes of many. She ignored it.

"I... umm... really, I'm pretty happy here! I've had a pretty good life so far, and I like all of you guys, even if you seem kinda angry."

A murmur of anger rippled through the crowd, slowly growing into a deafening buzz.

"Anyway!" Claire smiled. "That's all there is to know about me!"

Silence. Then...

"You well-adjusted _bitch_! GET HER!"

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Mineral Town was a small, quiet community. It was peaceful, though it had its problems and secrets.

Nobody would ever be able to claim otherwise, as nobody was outside of Doug's Inn that day to hear the shouts, and the horrified screams of Claire Lourdes as she felt the wrath of villagers far too long stewing in their own bitterness...

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Just something I felt like whipping up. I noticed the games love their angsty backstories, and that loading on the misery seems to be the only thing synonymous with having interesting, engaging characters half the time. You may agree, you may disagree - I just noticed the prominence. Anyway, feel free to leave a review, if you'd like.


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